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Vinyl and Java: Little Amps Serves Up Music with Its Coffee

by Joanne Camas

on 04/30/14 at 09:30 AM

People are passionate about both their music and their coffee, and Little Amps Coffee Roasters aims to please. The coffee shops in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, encourage local musicians to perform live in the stores, and owner/roaster Aaron Carlson also sells vinyl records. And of course Aaron serves a mean cup of joe, too.

Has Little Amps Coffee always been based in Harrisburg? Why did the city draw you?

I grew up near Harrisburg, and returned about five years ago. I used to play in some traveling bands, and we were always on the lookout for some good coffee. We got into great coffee a few years ago, living in Oakland, California, and watching small coffee roasters open and start serving coffee like we'd not had before: intense, flavorful, fresh, and with no sign of the "roasty" taste sold at the big coffee stores.

At Little Amps, we're obsessed with the steps of getting that taste in the cup: cultivation, processing, shipping, storage, roasting, and preparation. We source beans from amazing farms worldwide and roast them right here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

You sell vinyl records as well as coffee. Why's that important to you?

Well, I like records. It's not really a moneymaker, but it's fun for everybody.

Little Amps often hosts art shows and concerts. Do you think it’s important for businesses to be part of the community in such a hands-on way?

It's nice for us--a lot of good art and music has passed through here that we're pretty proud of. It's been a great way for me to experience a lot of music without actually leaving my workplace!

You let people bring in food from other local businesses even though you serve a light menu. Why?

It's really hard to do excellent coffee and excellent food. We choose to focus on the coffee, and we have bakers who bring us incredible things to nosh on, but we're not setting out to make this a part of our primary business. So, sure: Bring food and buy coffee. Or buy ours and buy coffee!

How does a small business compete with the coffee giants (won't mention any names!)?

We actually view ourselves as a niche that's a little different from Starbucks, or, for that matter, almost anyone. We'd feel threatened if a Blue Bottle, a Stumptown, or an Intelligentsia were to set up a shop in Harrisburg, but I think we're safe for now!

I see a couple of unusual coffee drinks on your menu: the Uptown Ginger Brown and the Princeton. Are those your own recipes? Are they big sellers?

They are decent sellers for folks looking for something a little different. We're pretty old-school with our espresso drinks, and these are our jazzy offerings. We're always playing around with how flavors interact.